Journal of Conflict Resolution

How does conflict, displacement, and return shape trust, reconciliation, and community engagement? And what is the relative impact of exposure to violence on these indicators? In this paper we explore these questions by focusing on the legacies of armed conflict and the differences between those who stayed in their communities of origin during the conflict (stayees) and those who were displaced internally and internationally and who returned home over time (returnees). The results, which rely on analysis of data we collected in Burundi, suggest that internal returnees have significantly lower levels of trust, reconciliation, and community engagement than stayees, whereas the differences between international returnees and stayees are mostly statistically insignificant. Greater exposure to violence has a more negative effect on reconciliation and community engagement for returnees compared to stayees, while the effects on trust are mixed.

Millions of people around the world are internally displaced. And yet – compared to other forms of wartime victimization – scholars know relatively little about the long-run consequences of displacement for victims. This gap in the literature is problematic since displacement is distinct from other forms of victimization, and because IDPs face unique challenges in post-conflict transitions. This study contributes to the literature on the effects of displacement in three ways. First, the study brings to bear a unique sample of households in Colombia that is largely homogeneous along key confounders – mostly poor, rural, and conflict-afflicted – yet varies in their exposure to displacement. Next, the study draws on a rich set of covariates and outcomes to provide plausible estimates on the long-run effects of internal displacement. The study finds that a decade or more after displacement, victims experience substantial negative welfare deficits yet exhibit higher levels of social cohesion than their counterparts. Finally, combining a prediction framework with key stakeholder interviews, the study explores variation in outcomes among victims, particularly why some can return home and seek reparations while others are not. The results reveal a wide assortment of consequences resulting from displacement and should help inform policy-making bearing on support for internally displaced people.

This research highlights a neglected paradox of migration policies: whereas narratives on migrants as a security threat in their countries of destination find little support in empirical studies, forcing migrants to return may increase violence and crime back home. Using migrants’ exposure to deportation threats at destination as an exogenous source of identification, this paper traces the long shadow of immigration enforcement on violent crime in Mexico, recipient of more than 3.5 million deportees from the US over the period 2000–2015. Enforced return is associated with more homicides and a stronger presence of cartels in migrants’ municipalities of origin, as well as a higher sense of insecurity among the population and a higher probability of being assaulted. Identifying these local effects of enforced return are a first step towards unpacking the various direct and indirect channels through which immigration enforcement generates unintended negative outcomes in migrants’ communities of origin.

How should we measure terrorism? Political scientists typically use executed attacks as the dependent variable and test covariates to identify factors that produce terrorism. But attacks are an imperfect measure of terrorist activity because of ‘plot attrition’ — the tendency for plots to derail due to police intervention or other factors. We examine whether the exclusion of foiled plots from event datasets constitutes a measurement problem in terrorism studies. Building on recent advances in plot data collection, we study the correlation between plots and attacks and conduct an original analysis of jihadism in Europe. Our results suggest common research designs predicting terrorism can produce different results depending on whether incidents are operationalized as plots or attacks. Adjusting for state security capability does not solve the problem. Despite its limitations, plot data is a more complete measure of terrorist activity that should be incorporated, when available, in quantitative studies of terrorism.

Civil-military relations and terrorism are both extensively studied subjects. Their relationship has, however, yet to be examined. We maintain that public conflict between the civilian and the military leadership in a country and declining civil control over the armed forces may often precipitate a rise in domestic terror events. Civil-military conflict and reduced civilian control can lead to agency slack by the armed forces and ineffective counterterror policies. These phenomena are also associated with policies that exclude groups in society and generate grievances, leading some to turn to terror. In zero inflated negative binomial analyses of domestic terror events and two distinct indicators of civil-military tension, we find support for our contention. Terror incidents increase both when civil-military conflict rises and when civilian control decreases. Our results add to understanding of both the domestic consequences of civil-military tension and the types of influences that impact domestic terror.

The reintegration of former armed group affiliates into formal politics is a fundamental challenge for post-conflict societies. Arguably, this challenge is even more difficult in settings where ethnic discrimination is pervasive, since discrimination implies comparatively higher barriers to political reintegration for racialized ex-combatants. In this paper, we explore how ethnicity and armed group affiliation interact to shape electoral prospects. Specifically, we investigate whether participants in a conjoint experiment in Colombia discriminate between political candidates of European and African descent and whether politicians of different ethnic identities are differentially punished for ties to armed groups. We find that participants display a strong aversion toward politicians with armed group affiliations and that they discriminate against Afro-Colombian candidates. Furthermore, we demonstrate that biases are additive, in the sense that Caucasian and Afro-Colombian candidates are equally punished for associating with armed groups. Finally, we explore heterogeneous treatment effects to shed light on sources of ethnic discrimination and aversion toward former armed group affiliates.

“Loyalty trials” are common to a range of conflict settings, with consequences that range from harassment to imprisonment, torture, or death. Yet, they have received little if any attention as a general phenomenon in studies of state repression, civil war, or rebel governance, which focus on particular behaviors that authorities use to put people on trial, such as dissent, defection, and resistance. Using a computational model and data on the German Democratic Republic and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, we focus on the dynamics of “loyalty trials” held to identify enemy collaborators—the interaction between expectations, perceptions, and behavior. We use our framework to explore the conditions under which trials result in widespread defection, as in the German Democratic Republic, or in conformity as illustrated by our study of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The polarizing nature of loyalty trials and the propensity to over- or under-identify threats to political order have notable implications for democratic and non-democratic societies alike.